Garrett Peake
"Garrett showed the silver on his fingers. Any other time he would sell the material for a decent price, maybe he could buy a whore or two in Mistmoore. Maybe he could bribe Grygr and have a night or two with some food that actually didn't taste of salted crackers... or he could just kill him and take it then as well as his position. It made him smile, that was a thought." '''Garrett “Greenfoot” Peake '''is the legitimised bastard son of a small lordling family in the Middlelands hamlet of Beckburn. He is eighteen years of age at the start of Mortal Songs. Garrett is the only living child of his middle-aged parents. He is one of the major POV characters in Beyond a Waking Eye. Appearance and Character Garrett is best described as being hard-headed, strong-willed, passionate, and impulsive. He has a marked lack of self-restraint that often leads him into trouble. His limited self-control is evident in his temper, which often caused him to act recklessly in anger, or say things he himself knew he should not have. Though he has great compassion, Garrett has little in the way of empathy and is prone to taking things at face value, evaluating situations or ideas solely by his own arbitrary perspective and rarely ever thinking deeper about them unless someone else points things out for him. He is adequate in sword-fighting, preferring archery, in which he excels. Later in Mortal Songs, Garrett is mortally wounded after an encounter with a Draugr in an ancient Tyrisian ruin. All of Garrett’s fingers save for his thumb on his right hand are bitten off by the Draugr above his knuckles. He has black, medium-length hair that is almost always damp due to the northern weather, so much so that he doesn’t bother washing, as he relies on the rain to instead. His eyes are so dark that they seem as black as his hair. He has a gaunt figure since the start of the series, and has rough stubble. He is almost always clothed in Boscage Warden robes and cloaks. While heavily ambitious, his honourable personality somewhat changes throughout the story. At the start of Mortal Songs, Garrett seems uncaring about others and aims to do whatever he can to secure a place with the Forest Masters. As he proceeds through the story and grows his friendships with other recruits, Garrett’s ambitions fall to the wayside and instead focuses on repairing the integrity of the Boscage Wardens. Due to his struggle to do this task, Garrett is rewarded by his comrades and is voted High-Lord Overseer, forcing Frederich Van-Perin to step down, causing hostilities in the higher-ups but is praised by the common soldiers. As his self-confidence and sense of honour develops, Garrett takes into account of his duty while making decisions, most notably the situation over in Mistmoore. Garrett normally possesses a no-nonsense attitude, liking things to be done as efficiently as possible and to the best standard. He has always been an outdoors person, even in his youth. He is pale and physically slender, also somewhat scrawny. He is described as not being particularly handsome nor at all ugly. He feels somewhat guilty of leaving his parents without properly saying farewell, as he stormed out of their house into the pouring rain as they trued to stop him from joining the Boscage Wardens. Though this never goes into detail; it is evident he left on bad terms with his parents. When he returns five years later, his parents are eststic and proud of his accomplishments. This gives him a huge boost in confidence as he believes his parents hated him for leaving, but now that he has been given the assurance he needed, he leaves a day later with a productive attitude. When Garrett is twenty, he finally arrives at Mistmoore tohelp Borri with the attacks from the Black Cove. During his time there, he meets Hansa Wildow and nearly dies trying to save him in the Black Cove. When he carried Hansa out unconscious, Garrett experienced a burst of dry and did his best to save him as Hansa reminded him of his little brother Jakub that was kicked by a horse and got killed. With this determination, Garrett is able to find an outrider and save Hansa. History Little is known about Garrett’s past. In passing, we learn he grew in Beckburn and hated how he could never inherit lands as he was a bastard, plus he was only a member of a lordling family. Even though his father eventually legitimises him on the promise that Garrett will marry Marquess Deyana Hayard (Pearl Wildow’s second cousin). Garrett obviously does not go through with this, and may actually be the reason for his trek to the Boscage Wardens in the first place. As a child, Garrett was an incredibly outdoors person. He hated staying in one place for a prolongd period of time and was passionate about exploring new countries. It was also a common occurrence for Garrett to be involved in fights between other kids his age in the village, and even though he would always come home beaten bloody, Garrett couldn’t remember a time where he willingly gave up and kept fighting no matter how his much wounds stung. Garrett actually became a bit of a bully because of this, and would browbeat other children to let loose his own victimhood. Looking back on this when he is older, Garrett is not proud. Quotes "Two black pearls gawked at Garrett, and he suddenly found himself feeling like no clothes touched his chest. Jarl Grygr's crow cawed in his direction as his pinions raised aloft its black mane. Grygr fingered a worm from the dirt and cupped it in his palm as the crow pecked it down its throat. He swivelled his head to Garrett now, and with every blink came a twitch of its neck. A raggedy creature, Garrett thought, they crow nothing but a false sense of security. A dove would calm him instead... perhaps those in the north could." - Garrett unsettled by the intelligence of Jarl Grygr's shoulder-perched crow.